It’s got built in manual controls, but there’s also the option to download an app to your phone so you can control your smoker through your wifi! Honestly, this really impressed me, and I don’t know why other manufacturers aren’t all over this. Apparently there’s a cloud based app coming out soon so you can control your grill anywhere you can get internet, so you could be sitting at your kids football game whilst checking the status of your post-victory feast! The controls are also fully programmable, so you could for example set it to smoke for 5 hours and then cook for 2, finishing just as you pull up onto your drive.
The seventh pellet grill to achieve its place in our pellet grill review is the YOYO wood pellet grill and smoker. It is a 679 square inch griller (1 cooking surface) with 2 level cooking levels surface. This pellet grill weighs 170 pounds. It maintains temperature from 180 degrees to 475 degrees Fahrenheit. Another feature of this pellet grill is that, it has a digital thermostat controller and comes with the assembly tool kit included.

I store it in the Camp Chef cover. It takes about a minute to pull the cover off, install the gas cylinder and side tables, move it into cooking position on my deck, and light the burners. It doesn't take much longer to clean up. After getting the griddle back up to high temperature for cleaning, the active work of squirting, scraping and wiping down takes just a couple of minutes. After cool down, removing the gas tank and side tables (which fit nicely on top of the griddle for storage) and putting the cover on takes another a minute.

I also was a certified KCBS judge but never judged at an event. Their judging system was flawed in my opinion because if you truly follow their system it is possible that them best tasting piece of meat might not win. In cutting horses (not a judge but read all the rules as I showed a fair amount back then) you were always supposed to judge the best overall horse to win. I asked about leaving a process to make sure the piece of meat you feel is best to win and was told absolutely not you have to judge presentation points, tender points & etc. and not place based on your opinion of the best piece of meat! Not that KCBS is a bad organization, it’s rules didn’t fit my thought process. Passed their class and got the t-shirt just never agreed, was always a spectator.

Using accurate digital thermometers to monitor cooking and internal meat temperatures is essential to being all that you can be in the backyard. Unlike the caveman-era heat estimators built into the lids of most grills and smokers, modern pellet smoker LED displays will give you the real story of what's happening in your smoker. Of course, if your smoker doesn't come with a dual-display system that monitors both cooking and meat temps, you'll still need an accurate digital meat thermometer.

Auger Making Weight Noises: It’s usually indicating a problem with the motor that’s responsible for rotating the augers. Under such circumstances, you would be left with no other choice than to replace the motor completely. Since the motors and augers are usually packaged together, this can get quite expensive. In such scenarios, it’s better to let it make noises and run for as long as it would serve you before going to replace it. However, once that problem occurs, you’d often find the auger not feeding the pellets at the expected rate and thus, the desired temperature might not be reached in some cases.
I bought my Traeger Pro Grill a year ago and have thoroughly enjoyed using it. The problems began when it suddenly stopped working. The warranty is a self-service warranty which means you have to service it yourself or load it up and haul it to a distributor for repair should your efforts fail. For this reason I HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU AVOID BUYING A TRAEGER GRILL. Anytime you pay 1500 for anything a warranty should mean just that, it’s a replacement warranty. I am terribly disappointed with the response from Traeger. Please feel free to contact me should you need further clarification.

Hey Charlie – I’d leave that grate wide open if you want maximum heat. If the grates are only over the burn pot, then you can do sort of a two zone cook (indirect vs direct heat) by putting a thicker steak, chop, or piece of chicken on the ‘non direct’ side to get up to a temp that’s 15 or 20 degrees lower than your target. Then, finish off over the burn pot area. Just one idea.

We’re people like you, people who love outdoor cooking—the food, the fun, the time with family and friends. We’ve turned that passion into expert knowledge and an unmatched selection of BBQ and grilling products. Any question, big or small, we can help. From your first click to your next call, whether you’re interested in backyard BBQ or an outdoor kitchen, we have what you need and same-day ship nearly every order from our huge in-house inventory.

I was able to put this to use for the first time this past weekend. It was awesome! Worked exactly as expected. Very easy to cook on and clean. I see us breaking this out on every camping trip. Just a bit of warning though...our first meal on the griddle side was scrambled eggs (which cooked up super fast) and we forgot to make sure the stove itself was level and the eggs almost slid over the not so tall edge. Once the stove legs were leveled, everything was perfect.
Hey Kevin great article. I too am currently looking for a pellet smoker. I’ve narrowed it down between a Yader, Memphis Pro and the Rec Tec. The Green Mountain did not seem very well built. The wheels looked liked the would break on the first roll and the stainless steel door was flimsy and did not have a good seal. I know the Rec Tec has a 6 year warranty. Do you know how long the warranties are on the other two?
Normally you will get 1- 3 years of warranty for the top pellet smokers from different companies. Traeger will serve you with a 3-year warranty while Camp Chef will give you only 1 year of warranty. Considered this the safe period for your pellet grill, so take advantage. If you own a top quality smoker then you may need not to think of any replacement within 5 years of buying.
It doesn't matter if you're talking about pellet grills, pop songs, or pizza, everyone always wants to know which is the best. While that might seem like a fairly straight forward question, there is no simple one-word answer. Is the best pellet grill the most popular one made by the best-known brand? Is it the most expensive one with the most advanced features and high-end bells and whistles? Is it the one that offers the best combination of price and performance? Really, the answer depends on you, your means, and your needs. Or, put another way, maybe the question shouldn't be what's the best pellet grill? but what's the best pellet grill for you?
Although I marked price high. I would buy it again, tomorrow. I was a novice. I had never smoked anything when I bought this. It is amazing and if you asked my friends and family I should have opened a bar & grill. It's grills better than any gas grill u can buy. The YS640 only gets better with time you get good at using it. It's the best cooker on earth. If your considering paying over $800 for a cooker. Spend the money... you will not regret it. My cousins have Traegers.. and they smeared by them. One weekend at my cabin one has ordered his the other don't have the money yet. I have used it a minimum of 2 days a week and have already got my money out of it by not ruining meat. The guys at Yoder have a monopoly. No one makes a cooker that could stand up to it. THANK YOU YODER. YOU HAVE MADE SOME GREAT HOLIDAY MEMORIES FOR ME AND MY FAMILY. Remember if your on the borderline don't know if it's worth a little more. By the 12th month of owning it. You will look at your wife or girlfriend and say "I'm so glad I spent a little extra and got that. It's beautiful.
The first name to kick start our list of the best pellet grill review is the Camp Chef PG24 Pellet grill. It measures 45 inches by 21 inches by 51 inches, in dimensions. This pellet grill weighs 127 pounds and capacitates a 550 cubic inch cooking surface. It has a removable upper rack, and it comes with a stainless steel food probe. Camp Chef PG24 Pellet grill comes with an LED digital temperature control system, and has a patented down cleaning system. It can provide temperatures from 160 degrees to 500 degree Fahrenheit, and has an internal sensor.
Multi-position Controller - A step up from 3-position controllers, multi-position controllers feature a knob with temperature settings that go from 180°F to 420°F in 25° increments and may have an LCD display. In addition to more settings, these controllers offer more temperature control. However, they also run on fixed cycles and can only maintain about +/-20°F in ideal conditions—in cold windy weather they are less accurate and reliable. Some versions of these controllers have inputs for meat probes that can monitor food temperatures.
If you have an older smoker and need a lot of physical maintenance like changing the hopper and the digital control, then changing those two parts may not help. These two changes may cost you $200 – $250 and with a rusty hopper, you will continuously lose the smoke you produce. This is not safe for your health, so in this situation, you should definitely opt to get a new pellet smoker grill.

Hi i would like to buy my boyfriend a good quality smoker but can’t seem to find one that’s small for people just starting out with smoking for our small backyard. Does anyone have any suggestions? I don’t want to invest too much to start incase it’s too difficult to use or we find we don’t like it. I’ve read some reviews on little smokers that catch on fire and that worries me since we live in a townhouse. I figured someone on here would know of a well made brand that is on the smaller/less expensive side.

Hi Dillon, thank you for commenting here. As to your question, I think you’d be happy with either a Weber Smokey Mountain cooker 18 inch, or a Daniel Boone Green Mountain Grill pellet smoker. Each are on the smaller side of BBQ Smokers and BBQ Pellet Grills, with just enough extra space to make food for a small family get together as needed. My brother lives in Colorado Springs and had trouble getting his Weber Smokey Mountain cooker to get hot enough and/or regulate temps. He built a wind screen for it at first which helped a ton. Then, he constructed a kind of smokehouse for it to sit in. Works great and functions as desired. You can see more on the Weber Smokey Mountain cookers here. For GMGs, you can find Colorado dealers by visiting this link: http://greenmountaingrills.com/find-a-dealer/.
The Memphis Elite is the largest cooker in Memphis Wood Fire Grills' impressive line of luxury pellet smokers. They're extremely well designed and well built. The top-grade 304 stainless steel is thick and extraordinarily well machined. Fit and finish are impeccable. Meathead proclaims Memphis smokers to be "some of the best cookers [he's] ever had the pleasure to use." At $4,999, the Elite is clearly not in everyone's budget, but this beast is impressive enough for us to include in our 2016 Top 10 Luxury Grills and Smokers list, where prices go up to $50,000.
With 440 square inches of cooking space, an auger-fed pellet delivery system, and a digital LED thermostat and controller, your cooking will be simple, whether it’s burgers, a whole turkey, or racks of ribs. The side shelf is a convenient place for cooking tools or plates while the bottom shelf can hold spare bags of pellets or jugs of sauces out of the way.